Earlier in the year, Sony announced that it had made the decision to omit PlayStation entirely from E3 2019, causing a lot of anger, upset, and confusion. Mostly from me, because I just wanted to hear more about The Last Of Us Part 2.
As it turns out, absence really does make the heart grow fonder; Sony has been reported as the third most-talked about publisher during E3 2019, despite not even having a presence at the LA expo, or making any announcements of any kind during the show.
SonyThe Hollywood Reporter noted that Nintendo bagged the most tweets of any publisher this year (presumably thanks to Animal Crossing and Zelda), followed by Microsoft in second, and those jammy gits at Sony in third. Sony was followed by Square Enix and Bethesda, in fourth and fifth place, respectively.
While Microsoft and Nintendo went hard on revealing a blend of first-party exclusives, indie games, and third party releases, Sony decided to keep its plans to itself. We got updates on Halo Infinite, as well as more details on the future of Xbox hardware, but anyone hoping to earn more about Days Gone, Ghosts of Tsushima, or The Last of Us Part 2 were out of luck.
Still, while it might seem impressive that Sony was the third most talked-about publisher at E3, it’s not that impressive when you really stop to consider it. For one thing, it’s still one of the “big three”, so it makes sense it would still rank somewhere near Microsoft and Nintendo and above companies like Ubisoft and Square.
With or without a press conference or anything to show, people are still likely to discuss the house of PlayStation.
Naughty DogThen there’s the fact that one of the biggest games of the show – Final Fantasy VII Remake – is a PS4 exclusive, meaning Sony didn’t have to be there but could still enjoy the press around Square Enix’s hot new title.
Leaving that aside, most of the big third party games announced or shown off (Cyberpunk 2077, Dying Light 2, Marvel’s Avengers) are also coming to PS4, so it made sense for Sony to let the developers of those games do the talking while it took a year off from E3.
Naughty DogHopefully Sony will be back at E3 next year. I at least hope that the company holds another State of Play livestream soon to give us updates on the next (and presumably) final batch of PS4 exclusives.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.